Chrome Users: if you want to use the copy/paste operation in Chrome to edit your commonspot pages, install the cs_paste_extension.

Go to the Google Chrome Store
https://chrome.google.com/webstore/category/home?hl=en-US&utm_source=chrome-ntp-launcher

Search for paperthin chrome extension

Install cs_paste_extension by Fred Kingsbury

Click the menu button and choose Tools, Manage Extensions. Verify that the cs_paste_extension is Enabled.

A “redirect” is when a visitor is automatically forwarded from one page to another page. Common Spot provides a an easy way to setup a page to page redirect. You can use this feature if you have a page that is being replaced by a new page or may have been moved to another part of your website. Note that this is a page-to-page redirect and only affects this single page. (There are options available to redirect a site to another site, but you will need to fill out a Help Ticket and have the web team handle that for you.)
 
To do the page to page redirect in Common Spot, you must first make the original page expire. To do this login to that page and click on Properties Menu >> choose Standard Properties >> on the Main tab >> look for Expiration date. Set the Expiration date for the day you want your old page to begin redirecting to the new page.

Below the Expiration date, there’s an Action drop-down where you choose the Redirect Action. A text box will open for you to type in the URL of the new page or use the Choose option to find the new page. Click OK and that’s it. Do not delete the original page or this feature will no work!
 
Redirects are a very standard way to retire an outdated page but direct any visitors who may have it bookmarked to the updated page.

Most browser companies are moving to prevent programmatic access to the system clipboard. That means that the buttons in the Rich Text Editor (RTE) for Cut, Copy and Paste are prevented from working in Chrome and Firefox. Using Ctrl+X, Ctrl+C and Ctrl+V still work.
IE 10 still allows programmatic access to the clipboard.

The PaperThin Chrome Extension (free in the Chrome store) uses a feature in Chrome to allow those buttons to work.

PaperThin is testing IE 10 on Windows 7 for any other issues that may have come out of the recent (Feb 27) automatic push of the IE 9 to IE 10 upgrade.

You can use Internet Explorer 10 with CommonSpot if you press F12 and choose IE 10 Compatibility Mode. In straight IE 10 mode, access to the CommonSpot Dashboard is met with an eternal spinning dialog. We are testing a fix for this issue. Stay tuned.

Microsoft released a tool to prevent the automatic push:

http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=36512

Firefox 10 ESR was also automatically upgraded to Firefox 17 ESR last week. So far there seems to be no issues with Firefox 17 except Cut/Copy/Paste operations in the RTE. We are currently testing a work-around for this issue.

Error:

Attempting to get into the Dashboard with IE 10 results in spinning cursor.

 Work-around:

Hit F12 and change to Browser Mode: IE 10 Compatibility View

 Error:

Cut, Copy and Paste does not work with Firefox 17 ESR

 Work-around:

Get the FireFox 10 ESR version

http://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/mozilla.org/firefox/releases/

We have added a new custom element, Plus-Share, that will create a sharing element similar to that which is on the university’s second level pages (e.g. About ECU http://www.ecu.edu/ecu/about.php).  Using this element, users can email the page’s URL, share it on Facebook or Twitter or add it to their MyLinks bookmark list.

When placed on a page, it will automatically take up 100% of the available width.  There are no options to set for the element, so to use it, you just place on on the page where you want it to appear.

Some users, myself included, have noticed that if we allow Firefox 10 esr browser to update, it no longer works well when updating CommonSpot pages.  One major symptom is the inability to save updates within a formatted textbox element. A version check usually reveals that Firefox has been updated to 10.0. 8 or 9.

By reverting back to the original Firefox 10.0.1 version, you should again be able to update your website using Firefox.

The “Do-Over” Instructions

1. First, Click the appropriate link below and save the file to your computer.

• Firefox Setup 10.0.1esr.exe (Windows)
• Firefox 10.0.1esr.dmg (Mac)

2. Double-click the file to install.  This will take just a minute.

Once the installation completes, you can check your version by opening Firefox, clicking “Help” and choosing “About Firefox.”

We have had the Content Slider custom element a couple of years now (see example here: http://www.ecu.edu/cs-training/hallwa/Content-Slider.cfm).  Now we have added a new renderhandler that will let you use the element if all you want is the part on the left.  You can see an example of it here: http://www.ecu.edu/cs-training/hallwa/content-slider-new-renderhandler.cfm).

To do this, you put the custom element on the page just as normally.  Set the Left Width to whatever you want the width of the element to be.  Set the Right Width to 0.

For the tabs for each photo, you don’t need to put anything in the Thumbnail Text, since it won’t be used, but you want to fill in the rest as normal.  Do this for each image.

When you hit Save, the element will load using the default render handler, which means that there will be elements displaying on the far right that we do not want.

To change this, you want to click on the gear icon and then select more, which will display more options, including the Custom Render Handlers… option. Click on that.

In the Custom Render Handlers popup, select “Thumbnailless” (which is totally a word).  Click Next and the element will load without those parts on the right.

So, you are going to update your CommonSpot simple form, but there is no Edit Fields option. 

Huh?!? 

No worries, this is a new security feature in CommonSpot Winter 2012, and permissions are easily updated by the owner of the form or ITCS.

The default form security now allows only the owner (creator) of the form to administer (edit fields, delete, etc.), the form.  Therefore, other groups or users must be given that permission.  Here’s how this is done:

1.  From the Simple Form options menu, choose Form Security.  The Simple Form Security dialog box opens.

2.  This dialog box allows changing the form’s owner or adding individual contributors or contributor groups. 

3.  The permission level will be set to Administer.

4.  If the owner of the form no longer edits your site, enter an IT service request ticket, and ITCS will update the permissions for your form.

NOTE:  We suggest that a group be added rather than an individual unless there are special circumstances that require an individual be added to the form permissions.

Good afternoon,

It has been about a month since the CommonSpot upgrade.  We made it!

This was a huge upgrade for both the backend administration and the contributor interface. There have been many changes for all of us. We know you have experienced quite a learning curve getting up to speed with this new version.  We appreciate your efforts.

From the backend of CommonSpot, quite a few items were completed starting with the servers that were upgraded from 32 bit to 64 bit, then the databases were switched to UTF-8, followed by ColdFusion being upgraded from v8 to v9, and finally we could upgrade CommonSpot from v5 to v7.  Wow, that was a lot!

For all of you, our contributors, you were presented with an entirely new interface to learn.  Plus, there were strict browser requirements to get used to.  As you report issues to us, we are finding solutions or contacting the vendor for a solution.  We appreciate your patience as we work through these issues.  We have fixed many of them, but there are still a few outstanding.

Outstanding Issues

Here are the issues that you have reported that are currently outstanding.

• When you are editing a page and click on a link in a Formatted Text box, it doesn’t take you to the page.  In the previous version, clicking the link would take you to the page. Currently, you can use the Tools>>Find or Reports>>Pages, Templates, Uploaded Documents. We are contacting the vendor for a solution.
• Occasionally the browser window greys out.  Reloading the page is required.  We are contacting the vendor for a solution.
• Occasionally “MyCommonSpot” tab bar disappears.  Reloading the page is required.  We are contacting the vendor for a solution.
• Adding words to the dictionary gives an error in IE9.  We are working on this.
• Occasionally logging in using IE9 doesn’t work.  We are contacting the vendor for a solution.
• Occasionally on the 770 wide templates, pages are being cached in the “Printer Friendly” view.  “Printer Friendly” is currently disabled.  We are contacting the vendor for a solution.

Here are a few solutions, enhancements and best practices we would like to share with you.

Solutions

• When using a 960 theme, switching themes will show a link to “return to previous page”.  Clicking this link fixes the problem.
• When viewing a page that you want to edit and the URL starts with www.ecu.edu, change “www” to “author”.  This will take you to the page on the author server where you can login to make changes.
• If you have a simple form that was created by someone else and you aren’t able to edit the form fields, contact us.  We will need to change your permissions for the form.

Enhancements

• Login button added. When viewing a page you want to edit and the URL starts with author.ecu.edu, you should see a “Login” button in the top left beside the “ECU word mark” (logo).  Click this button to login.
• Subsite Tools button added.  Once you are logged in to author a page, you should see a “Subsite Tools” button in the top left beside the “ECU word mark”.
• Submit Ticket added to Subsite Tools.  Once on the Subsite Tools page, you will see a “Submit Ticket” button.  This will allow you to quickly submit a ticket to us regarding a page that you are having difficulty with.
• Responsive Design has been implemented on all 960 pages.  This will allow pages to be displayed properly for all devices whether it is a mobile phone or a desktop browser.

Best Practices

• Be sure to use one the supported browsers for contributing/authoring/editing in CommonSpot.  See list of vendor-supported versions.  Most of the problems we have encountered were because an unsupported browser was being used.
• When you are experiencing a problem, try the following:
  • Clear your browser cookies and cache
  • Reload the page and force your browser to bypass the local cache.  Follow the directions for your specific browser below:
    • Chrome
      • Windows: Hold down the Ctrl key and press the F5 key.
      • Mac: Hold down the Cmd key and press the R key.
    • Firefox
      • Windows: Hold down the Ctrl key and press the F5 key.
      • Mac: Hold down the Cmd key and press the F5 key.
    • Internet Explorer
      • Hold down the Ctrl key and press the F5 key.
    • Safari
      • Hold down the Shift key and press the Reload toolbar button.
• Resize your images before uploading to CommonSpot.  This will improve the load time of the page.

If you have suggestions for other solutions or enhancements, please feel free to share them with us by sending us an email, or posting on yammer.  Using yammer to share information is helpful.  If you are having an issue, be sure to put in a ticket as we do not monitor yammer like we do the ticketing system.

If you are having an issue, please submit a ticket using either the new ticket location mentioned above or via the Help Desk at ithelp.ecu.edu

Again, thank you for your patience and please continue to share your feedback with us so we can continue to improve.

Because of a conflict with the progressive design stylesheet we’re using, which adjusts the size of your web page to the visitor’s screen size, the ability to scale a photo within the CommonSpot image dialog box has been turned off.  This means that, while you can add a border or space around an image through CommonSpot image tools, you can no longer resize (scale) from this feature.  Images and graphics need to be sized correctly before being placed on your web page.

For those of you who don’t use PhotoShop, Becky has created a great tutorial introducing two FREE online photo editors that are super easy to use–even for beginners!

iPiccy requires no registration and is easy to use for cropping a picture or resizing.  fotoflexer doesn’t require you to join or register, either, and has many fun special effects. For a great explanation, see this Simple Image Editing–

For those Mac or Windows users who decide to try either of these editors, please Yam your experiences using either eidtor on the CommonSpot User Yammer Group.

While in the Winter 2012 intro session this morning, I finally figured out the difference between “My Pages” and “Page Finder” in Winder 2012.  Remember that “My Pages” is a listing of all the pages you’ve created–pages for which you are the owner–while “Page Finder” generates the entire list of pages, documents, etc., in your web folder.

Both features are found in the “My CommonSpot” site menu at the top of the page (the gray one), but they are each under a different category.

My Pages

For a list of the pages you created, click the “My Content” menu and choose, “My Pages…”

All Items Report

Generate a list of the pages, templates, uploaded documents and registered URLs in your web folder from the “Reports” menu. This includes any item, no matter the owner. From the report, click an item to open.

As Belinda noted, the new version of CommonSpot only supports Firefox up to the version 10 ESR release.  I have noticed that if I try to use FF14, that many of the editing controls do not respond properly and some of the reports of problems that we have had sound like users are also encountering this problem.

So, if you want to use Firefox, make sure that you are using version 10 ESR and not any of the newer releases.

You can download 10 ESR here:  http://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/organizations/all.html

As an update the to previous post, here is a permanent solution to the missing control problem that makes changing the URL of the page unnecessary.

1. Open up Internet Options
2. Pick the Security tab
3. Pick the Trusted Sites option
   
4. Click the  Sites button
5. Add https://author.ecu.edu/
   
6. Click Close, then OK
7. Restart IE

Everything should now work.

If you are using IE, you might encounter a problem that has come up a few times. In author mode, the links for adding new elements appear, but the links for editing existing content (the gear icons) do not, as you can see here:

To try to fix this, change the URL of the page that you are looking at from https://[URL] to http://[URL] (in other words just remove the “S” after the http.  When we do this, the controls show up:

We will get this resolved so that it doesn’t matter which address you use, but until then this workaround should help.

All site should now have thumbnails for their image galleries.

As you may know, the new version of CommonSpot now supports authoring in Safari and Chrome.  But pasting into a Text-block element in these browsers is a little different than what you are used to.

Safari

To paste in Safari, you have to right-click and pick paste from the popup submenu or you can use the appropriate keyboard shortcut.

Chrome

To paste in Chrome, you first have to download a Chrome extension.

1. Go to http://author.ecu.edu/commonspot/dhtmledit/paperthin_chrome_extension.crx and save the extension to your desktop.
2. When the download is finshed, drag the file to Chrome to install it.  A warning will appear in the bottom left of the window.  Click “Continue”.
    
   
3. Click Add when the next window appears.
    
   
4. A confirmation that the installation succeeded will appear.
    
   

After you have installed the plugin, you will be able to paste with Chrome.  To do this, you have to use the paste button that is on the RTE toolbar (Control + V and the right click context menu do not work in Chrome).

We have  had a couple of reports of missing Flash elements post-upgrade.  There is a relatively easy fix you can try that has fixed all the examples that we have seen so far.

1. Select the Flash option from the Element submenu.  A popup like this will appear:

   Click the Edit Button

2. A new popup will appear:
   • If you have a local copy of the Flash file, skip this step. Copy the URL (labeled “1″ in the screenshot). Open http://author.ecu.edu/[copied URL] in Chrome or Firefox (IE will not work). Save the Flash file to your desktop by using File..Save As or Control + S
   • Change the type to “New Document Version” (labeled “2″).
   • Click Next
3. Pick the local copy of the file that you just saved in the next window

Click Save to close out. The element should be working properly.

Understanding the proper resolution for an image greatly improves the quality of the photos in your website and also the load time, both important considerations for web developers.  This is the first in a series of discussions on image resolution, image size and how to edit the photos for your website using both.  Today’s post explains image resolution.

What is image resolution?

Digital images are composed of tiny dots called, pixels.  Each pixel is a different color, so all the pixels put together form the details of the image.

The inset above is magnified to 1600% to show how the colored dots make up the details of the boy’s hair.

Resolution is the density of pixels as measured by “pixels per inch (ppi).”  The more tightly-packed the pixels into each inch of space, the more detail (quality) there is in the image.

For example, the 10 ppi image below left is blurry because there are only 10 pixels per inch in the photo.  The middle image is an improvement at 20 ppi, but is still not a very good quality.  The image on the right gives the greatest detail of the three at 72 ppi.

Is there a standard resolution for web images?

While print materials most often use a very high resolution for the most detail, the standard resolution for web images is 72 ppi.  This give the most detail we humans can see on a digital screen while allowing the image to open (load) quickly.  The next post will discuss image size.

In the last post listing the supported authoring browsers for the CommonSpot upgrade, I mentioned that the appropriate Firefox version is called, “ESR.”  So, what is the ESR version and where do users download this version? 

What is “Extended Support Release”?

First a definition.  “ESR” stands for “Extended Support Release.”  This version is appropriate for CommonSpot users as it has limited updates (security updates are an exception to this) for at least a year.  Downloads are available for Windows, Mac and Linux.  Various add-ons are also available for the ESR version.

PaperThin, the vendor for CommonSpot, endorses and supports the Firefox ESR version as working with the Winter 2012 version of CommonSpot (our new upgrade version).

How do Users Download?

Visit the Extended Support Release download page and choose your language (scroll down for “English (US)”).  Click the “Download” button for your OS and install on your computer.  Any existing version of Firefox will be overwritten.  Bookmarks will transfer over to the ESR version.  The update also checks your current add-ons for incompatibilities.

 Note that the version number for Firefox ESR is 10.0.6esr. 

 Why Should Users Switch to this Version?

Authoring with the Firefox ESR version will resolve several of the recent problems contributors have experienced when frequent browser updates—which is normally a good thing—take the web technology beyond what our CommonSpot version’s authoring can handle (CS is not updates as often).  Therefore, using a version where updates are further apart slows down this problem and CommonSpot/Firefox work together well for a longer period of time.

Add-Ons Link

To search for available add-ons for Firefox 10.0.6esr, navigate to the add-ons page, type the version into the search box.  The list of add-ons that work with the ESR version will be available.

• Internet Explorer, 8 and 9 (Windows)
• Firefox 10 ESR* version (Windows, Linux, Mac OS X)
• Chrome 14 (Windows, Linux, Mac OS X) – limited copy, cut, paste**
• Safari 5 (Mac OS X) – limited copy, cut, paste**

*ESR stands for Extender Support Release – more on this later

**From the CommonSpot Winter 2012 Contributor’s Reference, page 322:

Authoring Browser Considerations

Authoring and approval functionality is nearly identical across the browsers. There are differences that affect usage of the CommonSpot rich text editor (RTE). 

For security reasons, both Mozilla-based browsers and Chrome disallow cut, copy, and paste operations unless you first configure the browser to explicitly grant access to the clipboard. 

You can easily install add-ins to support clipboard functions in both browsers.

Chrome users are automatically prompted to download and install on the PaperThin helper on first use, and clipboard functions are active after browser restart. To avoid the interruption this may cause, contributors using Chrome should create a sample instance of cut-and-paste in the RTE to invoke the download in advance of using the clipboard for actual content creation and modification.

For Firefox, see the how-to article taken from the Paperthin Community website. Configure Firefox to allow copy/paste

Safari restricts cut-and-paste to right-click operations, affecting the RTE toolbar and keyboard shortcuts.”

The web team is now in the testing phase for the latest version of CommonSpot.

So, here’s the plan–barring unforeseen circumstances–

July 1, 2012
The testing server opens to all contributors. We’ll be sending the URL so you can access your testing site. The testing server includes a copy of the ECU website plus the new version of CS. You’ll be able to play around with the new features, create pages, etc., without jeopardizing your current site.

August 1, 2012
The upgrade–the new CommonSpot version is loaded.

Please remember these are projected deadlines–sometimes project steps take longer than expected. However, we’ll announce delays and changes here.

Resources
Through the rest of June and July we’ll be posting “sneak peek” videos here and also on the CommonSpot Blog Upgrade 2012 page. The full introductory video will be posted June 29th.

Also, be sure to register for the hour-long, f2f upgrade overview sessions available on the ECU Training Calendar also scheduled throughout July.